WASHINGTON — Amtrak’s on-time performance record is terrible and getting worse.
The passenger rail company publishes monthly on-time statistics for its overall network, as well as for individual routes and trains. Less than three-quarters of Amtrak’s trains arrived at their destinations on time in May, according to the latest report. That represents a drop of nearly 12 percent from the prior year and is a little bit worse than on-time performance among the major airlines.
But this masks considerable variation among the individual routes, most of which are performing much, much worse than the network average.
Eight of the 33 routes, including most of the long-distance cross-country lines, experienced on-time arrivals less than 50 percent of the time in the past 12 months. The Empire Builder, running from Chicago to Seattle and Portland, Oregon, ran on time only 21 percent of the time in the past year. Only one in three California Zephyr trains made their trips between Chicago and San Francisco on time.
Terrible performance isn’t limited to cross-country routes. The Downeaster, from Portland and Maine to Boston, saw 49 percent on-time performance. The Capitol Limited, from the District of Columbia to Chicago, ran late more than 70 percent of the time.
Overall, only nine Amtrak routes ran on schedule more than 75 percent of the time. The reason Amtrak’s overall on-time performance stands at a relatively high 72 percent is that most Amtrak traffic runs along the busy Northeast Corridor between the District of Columbia and Boston. And compared with the long-distance routes, those trains are doing OK (not that this is any solace to the travelers stuck in Delaware for four hours last weekend). The Acela and the Northeast Regional trains saw on-time rates of 74 and 75 percent, respectively.
But it’s important to note that a 75 percent on-time rate is pretty terrible in absolute terms.
Consider the Acela. You’re essentially paying twice as much for a 75 percent chance of arriving 30 minutes earlier, compared with a standard Northeast Regional trip. Amtrak’s own performance standards, adopted just a few years ago, require the Acela to run with 95 percent on-time performance, and other routes to run between 85 and 90 percent on time. By that measure, all but one of Amtrak’s routes are flunking their performance goals, most by a wide margin.
There are two major forces behind Amtrak’s poor performance. The first is that Amtrak doesn’t own most of the track it runs on, but leases it from a panoply of freight rail companies. You might think that would be a perfect recipe for finger-pointing and buck-passing whenever a problem arises, and you’d be absolutely right. A byzantine system of regulations governs rights-of-way between freight and passenger trains running on these tracks, and Amtrak is usually all too happy to blame the freight operators whenever a problem arises. A dispute between Amtrak and the freight companies on these issues is on its way to the Supreme Court. Shoddy, out-of-date infrastructure is another leading cause of delays.
How could we make things better? For starters, it’s probably time to eliminate those costly, poorly performing long-distance routes completely. According to a Brookings Institution study last year, few people ride them and they’re costing Amtrak (and taxpayers) hundreds of millions of dollars per year. A one-way trip on the Empire Builder from Chicago to Seattle will cost you hundreds of dollars and last at least 48 hours (that is, if you’re on one of the one-in-five trains that runs on time). And that’s in the cheap seats — no sleeper car for you. At those prices and time investments, there is literally no reason to take the train from Chicago to Seattle other than for the romance of being on a cross-country train. And there’s no reason to keep pouring money into what amounts to a purely recreational transit option.
Amtrak should take the savings from the elimination of those lines and pour them into sorely needed infrastructure for its busy coastal routes. I’ll take a smaller, 21st-century rail infrastructure over a sprawling 19th-century one any day. I imagine most of those travelers stuck in Delaware would, too.